“What did you say your aunt’s name was again, dear?” the administrator asked Skylar as they stopped in the main hallway by the opening to the cafeteria.
The panicked look on Skylar’s face told Trent she’d forgotten the name of her fake aunt that he’d given her as they’d walked into the building.
Ivy stepped forward, flashing a smile. “Aunt Mildred. My friends here really wanted to get a sense of the atmosphere of this place, quietly look around on their own a bit, if that’s okay. You and I can discuss the business aspects of bringing Aunt Mildred here. I’ve been through this with my own dear aunt, so I know the kinds of questions to ask.” She waggled her fingers at Skylar and Trent. “You two go ahead. We’ll catch up. I want to talk to Mrs. Cyr about the meals they provide.”
The woman’s face lit up. “Oh, we have wonderful cooks, even a head chef like you have at fancy restaurants. Our patients rave about how tasty everything is. And many of the staff eat their meals here too. The food’s nutritious too, and catered to each patient’s special needs.”
“Of course,” Ivy said. “May I meet the chef? Is he here?”
“Absolutely. They’re prepping the dinner meal right now. And you can see that we have a beautiful dining area for those who are able to, and want to, take their meals here. We hand deliver to many of our patients who might not feel well enough for a cafeteria environment.” Mrs. Cyr motioned for Ivy to follow her into the cafeteria.
Trent pulled Skylar with him down the hallway. He tried not to think about how good her hand felt in his and focused instead on keeping up the pretense of them being a married couple. “Finally. I thought we’d never get away from Mrs. Cyr.”
Skylar laughed. “She’s certainly attentive. I’m guessing that donation may have been a tad too large. She’s been fawning all over us.”
“Next time I’ll have our guys cut the bribe in half. Does any of this look familiar or have they renovated and changed everything since you were here? It’s under new management. When new people come in, they often change things, whether it’s needed or not.”
“It’s different, for sure. New paint, new tile floor. But the layout, the bulletin boards listing activities, the soft music piping in through the speakers, even the fountain in the main lobby are very much like how I remember them. It’s a relief, though, that the employees we’ve passed aren’t the same people who used to work here. So far, I haven’t seen anyone I recognize.”
“Good. We won’t stay long. Just walk me through your routine, literally and figuratively. Tell me what you used to do, take me where you used to go. Give me a feel for what it was like for you here. Did you speak to many people besides the patients you were here to visit?”
“Not much. Just check-ins at the front desk, really, and small-talk whenever I was in a room with a patient and one of the nurses or aids came in. For the most part I kept to myself, just me and the people I was coming to see.” She motioned toward another hallway to their right. “This is the main area where I volunteered. Most people in this wing either aren’t mobile or are too sick to leave their rooms. Those are the ones who request visitors the most. I met some wonderful people here. It’s sad to think they’re likely all gone now, unless they recovered and got better. It happens sometimes, but it’s rare, at least in this section of the facility.”
Trent led her down the hallway, going slowly to give her time to soak in the sights, the smells, anything that might trigger memories. He watched her smile sadly as they passed one room, touch her hand briefly to the closed door on another. It tugged at his heart that she obviously really cared about the people she’d visited, and that it still affected her years later.
He couldn’t imagine purposely putting himself in that position, befriending and growing close to people knowing most would pass away soon. He was in awe of Skylar, knowing she willingly suffered that kind of pain because her desire to help others outweighed the high emotional cost to herself. Most people wouldn’t, or couldn’t, put themselves through that. Thank God there were people like her who did.
She tugged him to a halt just past one of the closed doors. “Why do you look so worried? Is something wrong?” She nervously glanced up and down the hallway.
He silently berated himself for not being more careful to keep his emotions hidden. “Everything’s fine. I was just wondering what you were remembering. Any details about the weeks and days leading up to your last day here could be important. Tell me who you visited, who you saw in that time frame.”
They continued their stroll down the long hallway as she told him about her routine, favorite patients, difficult ones too. When they reached the end of the hall, it opened up into a sitting area. There were several patients, most in wheelchairs, sitting in front of a large TV watching a movie. A few others were scattered around the large room on couches or recliners, chatting with each other.
“They seem so happy,” he said, as they headed to a couch against the far wall, away from the others.
“What did you expect?” she asked. “For everyone to sit around depressed?” She smiled. “That happens, of course. But most people I’ve met in hospice have faced their mortality and are ready to make the most of the time they have left. They’re at peace, enjoying their last days as much as possible. That’s what you see here, in this room. It’s the others, the ones who can’t leave their beds, who are the sad ones.”
“The types of patients that you visited.”
She nodded as they sat beside each other on a couch. “It’s sad that they’re fighting physical battles, unable to spend their time doing what they’d truly like to do. But you’d be amazed how much joy they still have the capacity to share if you hold their hand and listen.” Her face flushed. “I’m rambling. I’ve been talking your ear off.”
“Not at all. This is what I needed, to know what you did. You specifically mentioned three patients whom you got to know really well—Julius, Elsa and Martha. Were they the main ones you saw in the days before the shooting?”
She nodded, her hands clasped together, her knuckles whitening at his mention of the shooting. “Martha passed away a couple of weeks before...before I was last here. Julius passed a week after her. Elsa was holding her own, doing much better than the prognosis her doctors gave her. There was hope that she might recover enough to go home. Unfortunately, I never did find out what happened to her. I couldn’t risk contacting anyone at that point.”
“Were there any other memorable patients you didn’t mention?”
“That I saw in the weeks before...I left?”
“Yes. We’ll need to look into each of them, their families, due diligence to rule them out as being connected in any way to what happened.” He pulled out his cell phone and opened a notes app.
“I can see you looking into the staff, like if there was some man who fixated on me for some reason. But the patients? That doesn’t seem necessary.”
He lowered his phone. “Tell me who shot at you then.”
She blinked. “You know I don’t know or we wouldn’t be here.”
“Exactly. We have no idea who’s behind the attempts on your life. Which means everyone you came into contact with is a person of interest.” He raised his phone again. “First and last names of anyone you even passed in the hall on a regular basis. Anyone you can think of.”
She sighed. “Okay, okay.”
She rattled off names, descriptions of how each person fit into her routine. Other than her patients, she didn’t interact much with anyone else, as she’d said before. He was left with a small list. The top three were the patients she’d spoken the most about—Julius Thompson, Elsa Norton and Martha Lancaster.
The Lancaster name made him pause. There was a prominent, wealthy family in Chattanooga with that name who bred champion Thoroughbreds both here and in Lexington, Kentucky. Skylar had said Martha’s lawyer left her a large sum of money in an account after Martha passed away. It would make sense that if she was wealthy, she might have been related to the Lancasters famous for their horses. If so, could one of them have been angry about Martha giving away some of the family money? It seemed lame, given how wealthy the family was rumored to be. Certainly not incentive enough to go after someone for almost five years. But money made people do crazy things. He made a note to ask Callum to look into the infamous Lancasters to see whether Martha was a relation.
“There you are, dears.” Mrs. Cyr beamed a smile at them as she hurried into the room.
A harried-looking Ivy rushed to keep up. Trent couldn’t help but grin and immediately regretted it. The administrator’s smile widened. Apparently, she thought his grin was aimed at her instead of Ivy.
“Mr. Adams have you been enjoying your tour so far?”
Since she was nearly trampling his feet, he couldn’t even stand without risking pressing against her.
Ivy smirked at him but did nothing to facilitate a rescue as the administrator droned on about their cafeteria tour and recommended he come back some time so she could introduce him to the chef as well.
Skylar chuckled beside him as he struggled to keep up with the rapidly fired questions and information the administrator was throwing at him. He could well understand Ivy’s exhausted look and he’d only been the focus of Mrs. Cyr’s attention for a couple of minutes.
Taking mercy on him, Skylar stood and distracted the administrator long enough for Trent to sidestep her and get off the couch without causing either of them any embarrassment.
Tugging on his suit jacket, he stepped over to Ivy and spoke in a low tone. “You’re going to pay for that.”
“Oh, trust me,” she whispered back. “You owe me far more than five uncomfortable minutes. That woman could give a sermon a preacher would envy. Nonstop talking. My ears are tired. Please tell me we’re done here.”
He glanced at Skylar, who looked as if she was ready to wave the white flag, since she was now the focus of the eager administrator expounding about the virtues of the hospice center.
“We’re ready,” he told Ivy. “Check with the team. Call me if there’s any trouble outside.”
“You got it.” She hurried down the hallway before Mrs. Cyr could speak to her again.
Trent strode to Skylar, who grabbed his hand like a lifeline and let him pull her away. But even though he insisted to the administrator that they had to go, that they’d get back to her soon about their aunt Mildred, Mrs. Cyr chatted at them the entire way to the front lobby. It took another five minutes of thank-yous and forced smiles before they were able to escape out the front doors.
“That was torture,” Skylar whispered as they hurried down the walkway outside. “I hope you got what you wanted from our fake tour.”
He stopped her, just out of sight of the front doors. “Our tour isn’t quite done. Now that we’ve walked the halls, hopefully things are more clear, the memories more focused. I need you to tell me about that very last day that you were here. Did it vary from your usual routine? Who did you visit?”
She pulled her hand free and clasped them together, something he noticed she did whenever she was anxious. “There was nothing unusual at all, nothing out of the ordinary. I got here at my normal time, my normal routine as you said. Martha and Julius had both recently passed. I hadn’t picked up any new patients to visit yet. There was only Elsa.”
“You didn’t see anyone else? Speak to anyone on your way in or out? Meet anyone new or see someone you didn’t recognize walking the halls?”
She shook her head. “I’m sure I spoke to the receptionist, Debbie... I can’t remember her last name. Give me a minute. Let me think.”
The receptionist’s full name, Debbie Watkins, was in the police report that Trent had read. His people were already investigating her and anyone from back then that they could locate. But his hope was that Skylar might remember something she hadn’t told the police. People who went through a traumatic experience as she had often thought of more details later, after they’d already spoken to the police. That’s why follow-up interviews were so important. But that hadn’t happened in her case, probably because there weren’t any leads and the detective moved on to other cases, ones where someone had actually been hurt or killed. Lack of resources was a problem in law enforcement in general. It was why there were so many cold cases, and why Unfinished Business had more work than its investigators could ever get to.
“Don’t worry about the receptionist’s name,” he told her. “It will come to you later. Was there anyone new that day? Unfamiliar?”
“No. No one. Oh, wait, I was wrong when I said I followed my usual routine. I arrived earlier than usual that Saturday. Normally, the staff prefers that you not come before lunchtime. That gives them time to feed, bathe, dress, and provide medications to the patients before dealing with visitors. But I didn’t sleep well the night before and was up early doing weekend chores, so I finished earlier than normal. I decided to go to the hospice center early and see if they needed help with anything until Elsa was ready. Anyway, that’s my long-winded way of explaining that I got here early. But I left at the same time as usual.”
Trent made some notes in his phone. “That’s good to know. If the shooter had planned to go after you on your way into the center, he might have gotten there too late and had to wait around for you to leave—or he left and came back. This many years later, though, I doubt we’ll be able to find anyone who might have seen the guy lurking around waiting for you. But we can ask whatever staff we can locate from back then. When you left, you came out the front, like we did, right?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see him then?”
“No, but I was probably fishing in my purse for my car keys as I walked.”
“Walk with me. Think back and try to do what you would have done then.”
“Seems silly, but here goes.” She opened the purse Ivy had given her for this trip and dug around, pretending to look for keys, then pulled out a round makeup thing of some kind. He remembered her using it earlier to pat some color onto her cheeks. She clutched it in her hands. “I’ve got my keys, also known as my compact.” She rolled her eyes, then started down the walkway. “My car was parked at the far end.”
“Did you look toward the building, the woods to the left of it, toward the parking lot?”
She slowed, chewing her lip in thought. “I pretty much kept to myself on my trips here. I imagine I would have kept looking down at the sidewalk, or toward my car.”
“And exactly where was your car?”
“You already know, from the police report.”
“Humor me.”
She pointed. “Last one in the row, not far from where your SUV is parked at the curb.”
“You weren’t looking toward the parking lot while you walked?”
“I don’t think so. Like I said, I was probably looking down at the sidewalk, or my car. That’s what I usually do.”
They stopped a few feet from his vehicle.
“Why did you stop here?” he asked.
She frowned. “Because I stopped here that day.”
“Why didn’t you continue to your car? It was parked only twenty more feet away.”
“I... I saw him. Across the street, near the trees. He was facing me, completely focused on me. It just felt...wrong.”
“What did he look like?”
She shook her head. “Too far away for any real detail. I couldn’t even guess his height without a frame of reference. It was January, cold. He wore a black trench coat and a black hat, the kind that pulls down over your head.”
“Ski mask?”
“Something like that. It wasn’t over his face, though. Just his hair, part of it. I did see some dark hair he didn’t have covered. I could tell he was white, or at least, he had light-colored skin. That’s it.”
“That’s a pretty good description for him to have been across the street. You did good.”
“Yes, well, maybe the trauma of what happened burned his image into my brain.”
“What happened next?”
“Instinct. Or training, really. Muscle memory from all the lessons my dad taught me about protecting myself. I trusted the bad feeling I got and dove to the side just as he brought up his gun and fired.”
She ran her hands up and down her arms. “If I hadn’t dived to the ground, I’m pretty sure that first shot would have gone right through my chest. I rolled, then jumped up and ran in a zigzag pattern to get behind the engine block of my car. He fired twice more, hitting my car, then...nothing. No, that’s wrong. There were shouts. Other people coming out of the building. I think that scared him off. By the time I peeked over the hood of the car, he was gone.”
“What about the white truck mentioned in police reports?”
“I remembered seeing the tail end of a white pickup going down the road after I peeked over the hood of my car. Since the man had disappeared, I thought maybe he was in the white truck. But I didn’t get a license plate or a good description. No one did. And the police never found the truck, at least not one they could relate to what happened.”
“You didn’t actually see him get into the truck?”
“No.”
“Maybe it wasn’t his vehicle. Someone else was driving a truck and people assumed it was the shooter. The guy you saw could have come out of the woods, then ran back into them to get away.”
“That’s what the police said too. But there wasn’t fresh snow to show any footprints. And the ground was frozen, hard, which made finding shoe impressions pretty much impossible.”
“Did they use tracking dogs?”
“Not that I know of. Maybe they didn’t see the point since I wasn’t hurt, and there was no proof he was specifically aiming at me. Even I wasn’t sure until the next attempt on my life. I couldn’t see two incidents like that happening within a week or so of each other without them being related, and purposeful.”
Trent leaned back against his SUV and crossed his arms. “When you were walking, you said you were looking down, or maybe looking toward your car. Are you sure about that?”
She closed her eyes a moment. “As sure as I can be. I mean, that’s the natural thing to do, look straight ahead as I’m walking along the sidewalk. I had no reason to turn and look anywhere else.”
“But you did. If you hadn’t, he would have hit you with that first shot. You said so yourself. Think back. Something made you look at him.”
Again she closed her eyes, but a moment later she sighed in obvious frustration. “I don’t know why I stopped and looked.”
He pulled his keys out of his pocket. “Put the makeup thing in—”
“Compact.” She smiled and dropped it into her purse.
“Hold these.” He handed her his keys.
“Okay. Now what?”
He took her left hand and led her back toward the portico in front of the building. Once there, he turned her around facing his vehicle again. “This time, keep your eyes closed and hold my hand. I’ll guide you while we walk. I won’t let you fall off the curb.”
“This is silly.”
“Not if it leads us to the man trying to kill you.”
Her eyes flew open and her gaze shot to his. Then she nodded and closed her eyes again. “Okay. I’m ready. What do you want me to do?”
“Feel the weight of the keys in your right hand. Remember that day. Let’s walk, slowly. What do you smell?”
Her left hand clutched his as they moved down the sidewalk. “Pine trees. They’re all over.”
“Is that what you smelled that day?”
“Yes. Yes, but not as strong. It was cold. The air was crisp, clean.”
“Keep walking. Listen. What do you hear?”
“Birds. Squirrels chattering.”
“That day, what did you hear?”
She hesitated, then smiled, eyes still closed. “Same. Birds in the trees. Squirrels fussing because I was disturbing them. Maybe I was too close to their food supply. Wait. There was something else. The birds, loud, ugly squawking.” Her eyes flew open. She turned toward the road. “Across the street. There were crows making a racket, flying out of the trees. That’s why I stopped and turned. That’s when I saw him.”
“You heard the birds, turned and saw the man?”
“Yes.”
“Had you ever heard crows out here before?”
“Not like that. They were loud, a grating noise. Very distinctive. That’s what got my attention.”
He stared at the woods a long minute. Then he made a signal in the air. Immediately, a man got out of a car in the parking lot and jogged toward them. Ivy headed toward them too.
“Wow,” Skylar said. “I forgot they were here.”
“There are more,” he told her, as Ivy and the man joined them. “They’re making sure no one suspicious gets anywhere near you.”
“Is there a problem?” Ivy asked.
“Not a problem. I want to take a walk in those woods, check out where the shooter may have been standing, get his view of the parking lot. Will you guard Skylar? I want Ethan, our local here, to go with me since he knows the area.”
“Sure thing. We’ll wait in your SUV.” Ivy held out her hand. “Keys.”
“I’ve got them.” Skylar handed them to Ivy. “But I’d rather go with you, Trent. I want to help.”
“I appreciate that. But I can’t guarantee your safety in the woods. Too many variables. Too many hiding places. I’ll update you when I return. Won’t be long.”
He could tell she was disappointed, but she nodded and followed Ivy. He was relieved she wasn’t insisting on going with him. He already had enough trouble focusing with her around. He didn’t want to risk her safety any more than necessary.
“Ethan, let’s head across the street.”
They crossed the parking lot to the other side of the two-lane road out front. Ethan walked the tree line, scanning the ground, the scrub and pine trees as if he expected someone to jump out at them any second.
Trent thought about the police report, noted the distance to the parking lot entrance, moved a few more feet until he felt he was in the right spot—where the shooter had been standing that day. There was nothing remarkable about the location. Not that he’d expect to see signs of someone having been here this many years later. When he looked at the building, though, he could see why the shooter had chosen this position.
Ethan came up beside him, idly running a hand through his blond, spiky hair. “Smart choice. Slightly elevated. The cars wouldn’t block his aim.”
“Agreed. Perfect place for an ambush. Plenty of trees so he could blend in. No one coming out of the building would notice him right off.” It shook Trent to realize that Skylar was right. If she hadn’t ducked, she probably would have been killed. Even a poor marksman could have hit his target from here.
Ethan motioned behind them. “There’s not what I’d call a trail anywhere that I saw. But there’s a natural pathway between these trees like maybe there used to be a trail. The brush isn’t too thick right here. Sure doesn’t feel random that the shooter picked this specific place.”
“He scouted it out ahead of time,” Trent said.
“That’s my take on it too. Cops didn’t think so back then?”
“Since there wasn’t an obvious motive, they leaned more toward carelessness than attempted murder. Didn’t investigate it as thoroughly as they should have. Some people saw a white truck driving away right after the shooting. The police zeroed in on that, assumed the shooter was a hunter who took off right after it happened.” He motioned toward the trees. “Show me that possible trail you saw.”
About fifteen yards in, raucous shrieks sounded overhead. Birds squawked at them from the trees above. Crows, guarding their nesting area. Just like Skylar had described. It seemed likely the gunman had come through here. Which made it less likely that he’d hidden a vehicle somewhere down the road and ran to it after the shooting. Trent was betting he’d escaped into the woods.
“You’re the local. If you were running through this section of woods, where would you go from here? What kind of topography surrounds this area?”
Ethan pointed off to the right. “Go south, you’ll end up in some steep, rocky foothills with no way to go but up. Unless he brought climbing equipment, that’d be a dead-end. If you go north, you’ll run into a house just out of sight of the hospice center. Nowhere to hide there since the lawn is cleared of trees. Risky too since someone might be at the house and see you.”
“East then.”
They continued through the woods for a good ten minutes. Trent was just about to call a halt, thinking they’d missed some kind of turn the shooter might have taken, when the line of trees abruptly ended. Stretching out in front of them was a white three-rail fence and rolling pastureland stretching to the horizon. Off to the right were a handful of horses grazing. They lifted their heads, curious about their visitors. But they quickly lost interest and went back to eating.
A small lean-to abutted the fence a few feet away housing two all-terrain four-wheelers. If someone started one of those up out here, this far away from the hospice center, would anyone hear them?
Probably not.
He waved toward the endless white fences and grazing horses. “Do you know who owns this property?”
“I couldn’t swear to it,” Ethan replied. “But I’m betting this land butts up on the far side to the Igou Gap Road area, or maybe Jenkins Road. It’s all pricey homes and horse land over there. Given those expensive-looking Thoroughbreds, I’m pretty sure there’s a big white mansion on the other side of that rise. Seems right. Yep, pretty sure.”
“Who owns the mansion?” Trent asked.
“One of the wealthiest horse-breeding families in the tristate area. The Lancasters.”
Lancaster. As in Martha Lancaster? What were the odds that she’d be friends with Skylar, bequeath her a large sum of money, and then there’d be a direct path from the Lancasters’ property to the site of an attempt on Skylar’s life—without that attempt somehow being connected to the Lancaster family?
Of course, another equally plausible explanation was simply that Martha’s family placed her in the nearest hospice center to their property so they could more easily visit her. There didn’t have to be any nefarious reasons for their land to be in such close proximity to where Martha was, and thus Skylar.
But Skylar had said Martha’s family almost never came to see her.
He pulled out his cell phone and made a call. “Ivy, is everything okay there? No issues?”
“All’s well. Security has checked on us a few times. And before you ask, yes, the guard was one of the ones we vetted and met earlier. He’s legit. Nothing else going on here but boredom and some rumbling stomachs wanting dinner. You coming back soon?”
“Actually, that’s why I called. I need a favor.”